Glenn Milne must be delighted that Martin Ferguson isn’t a happy camper, as he’s finally able to write a column based on rumblings within Labor rather than play his traditional role as a conduit for Liberal leadership dissent (or smear people as “artists” and therefore “pervs”)… Today’s instalment contains lengthy discussion based on information from “those involved in the FuelWatch saga” including what Ferguson purportedly told “colleagues” - all in order to communicate “the message… from Ferguson”. Curious yet?
Those involved in the FuelWatch saga say that apart from the obvious economic nonsense of the scheme, Ferguson’s overarching concern was that to cede [sic] to such nonsense so early in the term of the Rudd Government would be to see federal Labor inevitably set on the same course as the Carr, Beattie and Bracks administrations.
Whoever’s been bending Milne’s ear also praises Paul Keating to the skies, and this bit is highly reminiscent of former Keating chief of staff Don Russell’s op/ed on Friday:
The message, I’m told, from Ferguson was that there are governments dedicated to “actions” and there are governments dedicated to “outcomes”. And in Ferguson’s judgment federal Labor’s state antecedents were in the former category; lots of largely meaningless activity that captured the 24-hour media cycle, but which ultimately amounted to not much in policy terms.
One might readily conjecture that Paul Keating has been having a word in Ferguson’s shell-like, but however true that is, it does appear plain that there’s something of a campaign being run here - for which Milne (as usual) is only the mouthpiece. So, is there any substance in the calls for substance?
The criticisms of state Labor administrations are a mixed bag. Yes, there are huge problems with infrastructure, but on the other hand, as Kevin Rudd quite correctly asserted (and polling showed the public bought), insufficient support from the Howard government for investment in services and infrastructure is a big part of the reason why those problems exist. In health, for instance, the ball was dropped on medical education, and huge pots of money which might otherwise have gone into the public system went to propping up the private health insurance industry. Similarly, at least in Queensland and Victoria (of the three jurisdictions named), we haven’t been seeing reform free zones. If I were to attempt a retrospective on Queensland’s ten years of Labor government, there’d be a lot of negatives on the balance sheet, but there are a lot of significant positives as well. To my mind, most importantly the realisation that Queensland had to perform on the international stage in order to secure a future beyond that of a resources producer and a suite of supporting policy in education and facilitating innovation.
It’s also clear that there probably is some policy content behind the Ferguson push, but what “the big structural reforms” he apparently favours are is quite unclear. If the Rudd government can successfully tackle education, federalism and climate change, I don’t think we’re talking about small bickies or “just symbolism”.
Nevertheless, there may be a sound point being made here about political strategy and media management, although I’m again not at all sure that the diagnosis of the state oppositions’ problems in the second part of Milne’s article where he cites a paper from the IPA by Tony Barry is on the money. The notion of having Brendan Nelson as a “big target” is potentially worrying! The problem the Coalition have - no matter how much they might have “won” the insiders’ contest over the past fortnight - is that their messenger isn’t credible, and voters are very unlikely to have forgotten suddenly that they were in government until recently for almost twelve years.
Bur, conversely, nor am I sure that allowing Nelson to set the running on the post-budget media rather than effectively communicating the real extent to which the budget does a lot more than “feel your pain” in the domain of living standards under pressure was clever in the slightest. In fact, I think it constitutes the government’s first big political mistake. It would be good if Rudd and co reflected on the lessons of the last fortnight, but whether they need prompting to do so from Glenn Milne and Martin Ferguson (and perhaps PJK) is another matter entirely.
Milne’s article, incidentally, does suggest a political motivation for the leak of Ferguson’s letter from within Cabinet, and that’s potentially more worrying for the government than the conclusion that there’s a public service leaker. Does Ferguson really think that the right place to have this debate is in the columns of The Australian? Talk about “a high-risk strategy”.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
I,m buggered if I know what all the fuss is about I live in Perth and have a friend who is a courier driver and checks fuel watch everyday,Nelson is as usual talking out his Bum followed by the usual liberal party hangers on Bolt, Blair, Milne, Shamahan and the rest of Murdocks bum boys
As far as the underinvestment in infrastructure by the Labor states, I wonder how much of the blame for that lies in the ghosts of governments like Cain/Kirner, and the “debt truck” lines of the early 1990s.
Here in Victoria, the late 1980s and early 1990s were associated with some high-profile financial collapses, some directly associated with the government, some not. At the same time, the state budget was running deficits to finance recurrent spending. Henceforth followed Jeff Kennett…
The lesson for state Labor governments of the 1990s seemed to be “debt is always bad” without any consideration of what the debt was taken on for. The consequence was, of course, what we now regard as a gross underinvestment in infrastructure.
Good point, Rob.
In Qld, the fear of borrowing has only recently dissipated - despite the fact that nothing similar to SA and Vic in the late 80s and early 90s happened under Goss.
The Dwarf deftly sidesteps any parallels one might observe between the state governments’ action-oriented performance and the Howard government’s approach over a similar period. Apart from Howard’s fixation on industrial relations, large-scale reform was neglected at the Commonwealth level, both in terms of action and supplying funds to the states.
“large-scale reform was neglected at the Commonwealth level, both in terms of action and supplying funds to the states.”
hmmmm…. what about the GST? Only the largest change in Fed/State funding sinxe Federation?
I had to laugh, when, on the news thay showed Brendan Nelson saying ‘ you don’t live in the real world’ in parliment. What a joke.
Do any of our journalists actually think for themselves, or they all just pundits?
Excitement! A new tax system… The GST might have some importance in (to some degree) simlifying indirect tax - though the numerous anomalies and exceptions are going to be providing work for the Henry committee in spades. But it certainly didn’t fulfil the purpose of sorting out Commonwealth/state relations for a range of reasons, many related to the Howard government’s short-termism and obsession with politicising everything.
It’s also interesting that it’s about the only thing anyone can think of - they had twelve years almost.
Won’t last. Australians are pretty contrarian that way. I think that’s good. It’s not a good idea to let one bunch have too much power. If Kevvie’s got notions re federalism etc he’d better get a move on.
What Mark said.
And seriously, the only other seemingly coordinated sequence of policies I saw from Team Howard was in IR - culminating in WorkChoices, with the earlier shifts in unfair dismissal laws, etc. The Howard era was heavy on tactics, light on strategy - exactly the kind of action-oriented approach Milne attributes to the Labor states.
I find it hard to judge the credibility of Milne’s claims about what’s happening inside the Rudd government. He frames the piece so that it reads as if he has insight into Marn’s thinking, but a careful parsing of his language suggests that it’s second-hand knowledge at best (e.g., “The message, I’m told, from Ferguson …”). What emerges more clearly than anything else is that the Poison Dwarf and Denny Penny are both clutching at any chance to widen the cracks in Labor’s cohesion. The dumb choices by Rudd in responding to the media and Admiral Nelson over the past week have helped them in their cause.
Its plain that the present ( Oh-solo-mio?) federale leadership has been psyched out by a feeble weak opposition. ( Kiss me Nelson? hardly! )
In order to regain the vital psychological edge may I suggest that we follow Nepal in declaring a republic?
Surely an attempt may be made now to redress the long standing Gerrymander* in this authoritarian Governor-Generalate!
Labor has all the states and territories, so if not now- when?
Crash through or crash.
* One million Green votes don’t count while one million gNat votes gain those flaming Tuckeyed in arseholes a swag of seats to sniff. This stinks.